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AMD Pitcairn gpu die
TSMC 28nm technology
GCN 1st gen microarchitecture
20 compute units
1280 unified shaders
80 TMUs
32 ROPs
256-bit memory bus
2012
So much happened so fast that I want to write down the events so I don't
forget. Steve Sullivan and I flew to Milwaukee to pick up the JetRanger
which had been there a month on a power line cleaning job. We arrived
Friday night and noted that eating and smoking were real popular in
Milwaukee. Saturday morning greeted us with a world class thunderstorm.
Getting a GPU and fuel for the ship was a real chore as nobody wanted to go
outside. Finally there was a break in the storm and we lit up. I pulled up
off the ground into a tail wind - the first time I had flown the helicopter
in almost two months. We had an uneventful departure from Milwaukee.
About a half hour into the flight we came across a very large barn on a
farm, wildly engrossed in flames. The light from the fire was almost enough
to brighten up the cockpit due to the down looking windows on the floor of
the JetRanger. After this the weather deteriorated to a low ceiling of
about 700', so we slowed down to 50 knots and creped along looking for radio
tower and wires. The Midwest has a large amount of very pronounced radio
towers as it is so flat. This type of flying is a bit stressful. After two
hours of this we crossed the Mississippi River and landed at West Union,
Iowa to stretch our legs and check on fuel for our next stop in Hampton. We
motored on through the low overcast another hour, marveling at how little
there must be to do for the farmers who live in Iowa. No bars, restaurants,
shopping centers, or anything along our route - just farms and they all
looked the same. We landed at Hampton and I had to pull up to the gas pump
right next to a hanger - a somewhat cautious maneuver. Parking a JetRanger
along the side of a building is a bit different from just pulling up and
parking one's auto. The sun came out and it was wickedly hot and muggy. We
wasted no time to leave.
Along the route we were experiencing a small electrical problem; a warning
light for the ship's transmission was flickering on and off. By the nature
of the flicker we were both convinced it was a wiring issue and thus a false
alarm but just the same we set down at Storm Lake and had a quick look at
it. After Storm Lake we passed North of Sioux City and across the Missouri
River. Our next stop was O'Neill, Nebraska for fuel and a more detailed
looked at the JetRanger's wiring issue. Careful analyses of it in the
burning hot sun by Steve assured us it was only a wiring issue and not a
safety concern at that time. It was real hot and I was tired during this
landing at O'Neill, and I let the helicopter enter a much unintended right
turn during our hover - not something that one would intentionally do in an
American built helicopter that has blades which turn counter clockwise. The
tail rotor prevents the ship from spinning wildly to the right but just the
same, if you allow it to begin a spin it's possible that the tail rotor
won't have enough power to stop it and an exciting landing could result.
After O'Neill we crossed through the Sand Hills, and area of literally
thousands of tiny lakes in a high desert setting. We were making mental
notes of the occasional road or farmhouse in the event of a problem, so that
we would know which way to start hiking. We made our first off airport
landing out here in a beautiful clearing. Landing a fully loaded ship up at
high altitude on a hot day is tricky. The heat and thin air sap the power
out of the ship and so the control movements must be more accurate to avoid
wasting what little reserve power you may have left. Finally we got to our
second stop on the trip, Alliance Nebraska. We set down next to the parking
lot of the Days Inn. Walking from one's helicopter straight into the hotel
is a real ego building experience. I could see the ship at night from my
hotel room window. Steve and I had dinner at the only restaurant that we
could find - it was a "dry" place, not even beer or wine. Steve and I were,
displeased, about this. Alliance made up for it by showing one of the
greatest sunrises I've ever seen - long strings of wildly pink clouds that
extended on as far as I could see. We pulled up out of the hotel and
made the short flight to the airport for gas.
Leaving Alliance we crossed over the Laramie Mountains and the Rockies,
which we did by snaking through the lowest passes we could find. We found
an old deserted corral just before Medicine Bow Wyoming, and landed at it to
stretch and walk around. It's quite a sight to see the helicopter sitting
in a field, turbine and rotors still screaming, while we walk around. Steve
and I were quite careful to "lock" the controls whenever getting out to walk
around. Pilots who forget to lock the controls while leaving the ship
running are sometimes treated to a really bad show when the ship decides to
take off on its own. After this stop we landed at Medicine Bow for some
practice approaches. Our next stop was Rawlins Wyoming for fuel and
hamburgers. Steve talked the airport guy into loaning us his diesel truck
and we drove into this sprawling metropolis of a town. After Rawlins came
the Great Divide Basin and the Wasatch Range, dropping us into the Great
Salt Lake Basin, and Ogden Utah for fuel.
We left Ogden and crossed the Great Salt Lake by following a narrow train
trestle that spanned the entire lake. It was quite a sight. We passed
North of the Bonneville Salt Flats and over the never ending desert. We
practiced more high altitude landings out here, and saw a beautiful six
point elk with its cows. Our last night was spent in Elko Nevada, where we
found a Basque restaurant with great food and wine. The next morning we
took off for Truckee, via Battle Mountain and Winnemucca, where we made many
practice landings on mountain tops. These landings aren't easy. Approach
too slow and you risk transitioning into a hover too high over the site,
something that your available power might not be able to support. Approach
too fast and you might not have enough power left to slow the ship before
hitting the ground. The line in-between these two scenarios is a thin one
at high altitudes like these.
We stopped in Truckee and met Hong and Elliot, who were up there with Chris
and Yamile. We all had lunch in Truckee, and then headed on for SJC.
Leaving Truckee we made a difficult downwind taxi to get to our take off
point. We landed again near the closed nuclear reactor outside of
Sacramento for practice, and then again at San Jose. The flight was 23
hours and something I'll never forget.
rcc
ATI R430 gpu die
TSMC 110nm technology
16 pixel processors
6 vertex processors
16 TMUs
16 ROPs
256-bit memory bus
2004
110nm version of R480
ATI R430 gpu die
TSMC 110nm technology
16 pixel processors
6 vertex processors
16 TMUs
16 ROPs
256-bit memory bus
2004
110nm version of R480